{"id":4285,"date":"2015-02-09T20:33:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T20:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/?p=4285"},"modified":"2015-02-09T20:33:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T20:33:03","slug":"farm-focus-stingling-nettle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/farm-focus-stingling-nettle\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Focus: Stingling Nettle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nettle_bounty_web\"<\/a><\/p>\nDeveloping a new product for Frog Hollow is often an adventure and definitely a team\u00a0effort. I never know when inspiration will hit and where it will take me. A typical day\u00a0might start like this:\n\nWearing his trademark overalls, Farmer Al walks into the office to talk with our\u00a0Marketing director, Pearl, about mail order sales and new marketing initiatives. As he is\u00a0leaving the office, he sees me and his thoughts shift to new products.\n\n\u201cAnna, what can we do with nettle? We have a lot of it!\u201d\n\n\"Well,\" I say as I run through options in my mind, \"we could make it in to a pesto, put it\u00a0in a soup.... I\u2019ve made it in to a tea before, but it has kind of an earthy flavor, and I am\u00a0not sure if it would sell that well. It\u2019s really good for you, though-high in antioxidants,\u00a0iron, and can even help with arthritis if you use it topically. Can you sell it fresh at a\u00a0farmers' market? I\u2019ve definitely seen people do that before.\"\n\n\u201cSounds great. Make something good. Can't wait to taste it!\"\n\nFarmer Al leaves the office, and I immediately get distracted from whatever I was\u00a0working on and start thinking of nettle. Okay, we have a lot of nettle. We also have\u00a0arugula, kale, and parsley in the garden. A pesto will be the best way to use all of these\u00a0greens, and will probably be a popular, too.\u00a0The next step is to make a plan with Kristin and Marlene for the best way to harvest this\u00a0wonderful weed growing abundantly in their garden. \u201cHey ladies, Al wants me to make\u00a0a product with the nettle. Can you harvest it for me? Please make sure to only harvest the\u00a0young tender plants or cut near the tips \u2013 I don't want the stalk or roots.\"\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you use the entire stem,\" asks Marlene. \"It's so much easier for us.\u201d\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s just a little woody and fibrous. Plus, there is a ton of dirt that sticks to the bottom\u00a0of the stem, and it\u2019s hard clean. If you don't get every bit of dirt then the pesto gets a\u00a0little gritty. I know our soil is super nutritious, but I don\u2019t really want to serve it to our\u00a0customers.\"\n\nNow that I have conversed with the farmers, it\u2019s time to clue the kitchen staff in on our\u00a0new project. I walk into the kitchen with a giant bucket of stinging nettle, and the ladies\u00a0look at me as if I were mad. Why is she cleaning weeds in the sink? Curiosity draws them\u00a0closer. A couple of the ladies examine the nettles a little too close.\n\n\u201cEsta pica!\u201d\n\n\"This is stinging nettle. It\u2019s really good for you, and we are going to make it into a pesto.\u00a0It\u2019s a little painful to work with at first, but you get use to it after the first time, and it\u2019s\u00a0great for arthritis. You will learn to love it.\"\n\nThey look at me like I am loco, but we carry on. Despite Marlene and Kristin's best\u00a0effort, there is still a lot of dirt to get off the nettles, and it's no walk in the park handling\u00a0the plant. Once they are clean, we blanch the nettles and portion them into little bags to\u00a0store in the freezer. When we are ready to make a batch of pesto, we just take out a bag\u00a0and blend it with parsley, garlic, arugula, and olive oil. It turns a beautiful green and has a\u00a0bright herbaceous flavor.\n\nThis stinging weed which was growing in surplus on the farm is now part of some of our\u00a0best selling and popular products. We are using the pesto to garnish our caf\u00e9 menu items\u00a0such as soup and pizza.\n\nI leave the kitchen and run into Kristin\u00a0\u201cHow did it go?\u201d asks Kristin.\n\n\u201cGood, but I am sore from cooking and moving around all day.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you want me to whack some nettle on your shoulders?\" Kristin smiles. \"I did it the\u00a0other night. At first it tingled and was a little painful, but my muscles were relaxed for the\u00a0rest of the night. It\u2019s pretty awesome, actually.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes..?\n\n-Anna","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developing a new product for Frog Hollow is often an adventure and definitely a team\u00a0effort. I never know when inspiration will hit and where it will take me. A typical day\u00a0might start like this: Wearing his trademark overalls, Farmer Al walks into the office to talk with our\u00a0Marketing director, Pearl, about mail order sales and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Nettle_bounty_web.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-177","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}